Ana María Moix

The woman hidden behind the myth of Sissi

Romy Schneider endowed the Empress Sissi with immortal glamour when she portrayed her for the cinema, but the real Elisabeth of Austria was anything but the exemplary consort she was expected to be. Forced to marry as a child on the emperor’s whim, trapped in the gilded cage of palatial life, Sissi was a republican with liberal ideas, a woman misunderstood and at loggerheads with the time and destiny that befell her. In this unforgettable novel, Ana María Moix, writing in her characteristic, disturbing lyrical style, offers a portrait that is both tender and detached from the chiaroscuro of the Sissi myth.